At present, an imaging apparatus is known such as a digital camera having a so-called image blur suppression function, which suppresses image blur. Such an imaging apparatus is, for example, described in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2004-274242, in which a mounting stage is provided at one end of a fixation cylinder which is integrally mounted to a case of a body and houses a barrel unit including a lens barrel, and the like on an optical axis for photographing. An image pickup device such as a CCD (charge-coupled device) solid-state image sensor is mounted on the mounting stage. The mounting stage is held on a guide stage, which, in turn, enables the mounting stage to move along an X-Y plane perpendicular to a Z axis of an optical axis. The guide stage is fixed with regard to the optical axis in the case of the body, while the mounting stage is configured to be driven on the guide stage by magnetic forces which are formed by permanent magnets and coils placed opposite to the permanent magnet.
According to the conventional imaging apparatus, a processing circuit containing an arithmetic processing device, or the like, which is provided in the case of the body, is configured to detect a slope of the body produced in the X and Y directions. Based on the detected output, by varying currents to be conducted to the driving coils, the image pickup device is controlled to follow the movement of an optical image of the subject causing an image blur. At this time, a flexible printed wiring board (hereinafter called simply “flexible board”), which can be flexibly deformed, is used to connect the image pickup device, which is movably disposed on the mounting stage, and the processing circuit, which controls the image pickup device and processes signals from the image pickup device. This prevents movement control performance of the image pickup device from deteriorating. That is, when the image pickup device is moved, the flexible board absorbs a reactive force generated on the flexible board due to the connection between the image pickup device and the processing circuit on which an end of the flexible board is fixed, by use of flexibility of the flexible board. Accordingly, the reactive force interferes with the movement of the image pickup device so as to prevent the movement control performance of the image pickup device from deteriorating.
In the conventional imaging apparatus, as the flexible board which connects the image pickup device movably disposed and the processing circuit or the processing device, a long flexible board is required in order to absorb the reactive force of the flexible board produced when the image pickup device is moved.
(Problem 1)
However, if a long flexible board is used, there is a problem in that the flexible board cannot effectively absorb the reactive force because the flexible board interferes with surrounding parts due to deformation of the flexible board such as slack thereof, or the like when the image pickup device moves.
(Problem 2)
Since most parts surrounding the image pickup device in the imaging apparatus are disposed so as to be overlapped with the barrel unit in a direction perpendicular to the optical axial direction, each of the surrounding parts has only a small space in the optical axial direction. Accordingly, there is a problem in that if the flexible board is not exactly disposed at a predetermined position, it is possible the flexible board will interfere with the surrounding parts thus increasing the reactive forces of the flexible board by the interferences. There is also a problem in that if the flexible board is not exactly disposed at the predetermined position to use efficiently the space around the image pickup device, reductions of size and thickness of the body can not be achieved.
(Problem 3)
Furthermore, in the conventional imaging apparatus, there is a problem in that the flexible board is deformed due to variations in the position of the processing device occurring when the flexible board is attached on the fixed processing device so that the movement of the image pickup device is affected by the deformation.
(Problem 4)
In addition, in the conventional imaging apparatus, the flexible board has a plurality of folded portions to absorb reactive forces. Therefore, when assembling the imaging apparatus, the flexible board is required to be accurately folded at a plurality of folded portions to allow the flexible board to be firmly housed at a predetermined position in a small space of the camera body around the image pickup device.
(Problem 5)
Furthermore, in the conventional imaging apparatus, the long flexible board having the plurality of folded portions is required in order to absorb reactive forces generated in the flexible board according to the movement of the image pickup device. Therefore, long signal lines disposed along the flexible board are used and thus image signals are easily affected by noise, or the like, and this causes a problem in that image quality is reduced.